Ok, Time to Catch Up!

Michael's Award

Michael earned the "Academic Achievement" award for his class in December.  We were so happy for him!  He has been working really hard learning to read and write.  Way to go Michael!

The same day that Michael earned his award, his Kindergarten class made Gingerbread houses.  Here is his house.  Yummy!

 

Christmas Eve

Nathan and the kids played outside in the snow for quite awhile.  It was fun to play in the snow without your nose hairs freezing!  Michael was the only one interested in building a snowman with Daddy.  Unfortunately we never got a picture of the finished product.

 Alina and Grandma cuddling

 



 Christmas Eve Bingo.  We played the Disney version of Bingo and the kids got a quarter for every bingo!

 

 Alina and the newest member of our family, Aunt Shanelle.

 

Odds or Evens Dice game.  If the kids rolled an odd number or doubles they got to pick a prize from the "prize chair".  Uncle and Brigham and Aunt Shanelle were so great to take over distrubuting the prizes!

Christmas Morning

 

 Alina got a baby from Grandpa and Grandma Bice that makes fussy noises so you put her binkie (or "deetee" as Alina calls it) in her mouth and she makes these contented baby noises until she falls asleep.  The doll makes breathing noises and her tummy moves up and down.  Alina loved it

 



 Santa brought Nate and Michael remote control Transformers that they can battle against each other with.  Nate got Bumblebee and Michael got Optimus Prime.

 



 Andy only had books on his Christmas list, so Santa surprised him by giving him a Bop-It Smash which was a hit with everyone!

 

 All Haley wanted was a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup shirt.  She got it with 2 HUGE Reese's PB cups with it!  She calls them "pies".

 

Grandpa got 3 headlamps in his stocking.

Family Pictures

We took family pictures at the Capitol Building.  Nathan took the pictures using our camera and tripod.  I think he did a good job.

 

After family pictures, Nathan, Grandpa, and Tyler took Holden, Nate, Haley, Andy, and Michael to a Utah Jazz game.  The Jazz played Golden State.  Unfortunately the Jazz lost, but the kids had fun!

 

There's a First Time for Everything

Uncle Tyler and Holden took us skiing at Brighton Ski Resort.  It was Nate, Haley, Andy, and Michael's first time ever!  They all took skiing classes in the morning and we met for lunch.  Haley really wanted to stay and ski longer.  We had to talk Nate into staying and he was glad that he did.  Andy and Michael, however, were done after their class.  We took the group picture after lunch, so you can see that Andy and Michael were done.

 

In case you are wondering who that man is with Andy and Michael on the lift, it's one of their ski class instructors.

 Andy

Nate

 Haley

Michael

NEW YEAR'S EVE

On our trek back home to Rochester, we stopped at a hotel in Rapid City, South Dakota that had a water park.  We didn't tell the kids until we got there.  We spent New Year's Eve morning swimming and riding some really cool waterslides!

 

After the water park, we headed over to see some huge heads at Mt.Rushmore.  It was really neat and the kids really enjoyed seeing the monument and watching a movie of how it was made (they used explosives to sculpt sections of the faces!).